Stormy Times for the U.S.

(4 of 4)

Hart responded that the smaller 40,000-ton carriers he proposes would, like the Nimitz, still be able to carry F-14s for their defense. In a letter to his fellow Senators, Hart argues that the sinking of the two warships near the Falklands shows how vulnerable surface ships are to modern missiles and submarines. It is wiser, he contended, to rely on a larger number of less expensive ships than to put too many eggs in one basket. Military reformers believe that the current state of technology gives an edge to those trying to destroy, rather than defend, a surface ship; U.S. carriers and battleships are particularly vulnerable to Soviet radar-guided missiles that can be launched from medium-range Backfire bombers. Said one official: "Why go out and build a $40 million ship when it can be wiped out by a $100,000 bullet?" The Senate last week decided to send the defense spending bill back to committee for further consideration.

Another military lesson of the war is that world arms sales often beget unintended consequences. The flagship of the Argentine fleet is an aircraft carrier built by Britain; the Sheffield was sunk by a missile made in France. U.S. proposals to sell F-5E fighter jets to Taiwan have exacerbated another lingering territorial dispute. Vice President George Bush went to Peking last week to try to ease Sino-American tensions caused by the proposed arms sale.

The unexpected turbulence in the South Atlantic has, for the time being, upset elements of Reagan's foreign policy and unraveled key alliances. It has dissipated much of the good will gamed by Reagan's Caribbean Basin Initiative, an economic and trade development plan that is currently being challenged in Congress by special-interest groups. A House Ways and Means Subcommittee, for example, voted last week to lessen trade preferences for shoes and rum. The Administration position on the Falklands has also undercut its controversial goal of convincing Latin America that the most dangerous threat to the stability of the hemisphere is the kind of subversion, promoted by the Soviets and their surrogates, that currently threatens the government of El Salvador.

Perhaps the lasting lesson of the Falklands, however, may be that in charting a foreign policy through turbulent seas, certain basic lodestars must not be forsaken. Reagan and Haig have correctly noted that one issue of principle supersedes more pragmatic considerations: political disputes and territorial claims should be solved by law rather than military aggression. As a senior State Department official said last week: "The simple bottom line is that aggression cannot be, and cannot be seen to be, rewarded." The short-term consequences of the U.S. decision to oppose, firmly if perhaps belatedly, Argentina's invasion of the disputed islands is clearly harmful to Reagan's Latin American policies. But, unlike the long-term consequences that would come from condoning such action, the damage is, or ought to be, reparable. —By Walter Isaacson. Reported by Johanna McGeary,Bruce W. Nelan/Washington